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CW's 'The Flash' adds panache to a superhero's burden

The FlashCW, 8 ET/PT*** out of four How nice to see a superhero who list optimism among his powers.Hopefulness, after all, is an unusual commodity in this era of the dark knight. We expect our heroes to brood

Hope, after all, is an unusual commodity in this era of the Dark Knight. We expect our heroes to brood and suffer in self-imposed isolation, wracked by guilt and ambivalent about their gifts, their calling, and their place in the world.

But not Barry Allen, the young man who is about to become The Flash — or at least not as so appealingly played by Grant Gustin, a young man who is about to become a TV star thanks to The Flash (CW, Tuesday, 8 ET/PT; * * * out of four). When Barry discovers he's survived a lightning strike, his response, surveying himself in the mirror, is "lightning gave me abs?" When he finds out lightning also has given him super-speed, his response is "Awesome."

And perhaps most importantly, when Barry decides he wants to use those powers, not to wander the city as a vigilante but to serve as its guardian angel, he does not do so on his own. Instead, he turns for help to the S.T.A.R. Labs team that saved his life: Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker), Cisco (Carlos Valdes) and their boss Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh), who may not be all he seems.

Not that Barry's life is all happiness and light. His mother was killed when he was a child and his falsely accused father is in jail for her murder. (Parenting a superhero has to be the world's most dangerous profession.) But even that has a bright-ish side: It allows the show to bring in Jesse L. Martin as his foster father and boss and Candice Patton as his sort-of sister/crush. As for Barry's real father, the show even has fun there: He's played by John Wesley Shipp, who played the Flash himself in the 1990 CBS series.

Every superhero, of course, needs an origin story. We meet Barry as a brilliant but awkward CSI investigator, the kind who can name a car just from a tire track but can't avoid annoying the cops while doing so.

But what Barry really cares about, other than freeing his father, is S.T.A.R. Labs' new particle accelerator/collider/gizmo. Little does he know it's going to turn him into the Flash — and turn many of his neighbors into supervillains. How many? That depends less on how fast Flash runs than on how long.

If the show can maintain the quality of the pilot, that might be quite some time. Luckily, it's in good hands: Producer Greg Berlanti and director David Nutter have done an excellent job of shepherding Arrow, pleasing comic book fans while inviting in newcomers. That alone makes Flash seem like a safer bet.